Tag Archives: NBC News

Paris residents warmed the Internet’s collective heart Friday night by using the hashtag #PorteOuverte, or “open door,” to offer shelter to strangers left stranded after at least six deadly attacks sent the city into chaos. A few hours later, people across the U.S. returned the favor with a hashtag of their own: #StrandedinUS.

The hashtag #StrandedinUS began trending overnight Friday into Saturday with offers from Americans willing to help Parisians having trouble making their way back home due to airline cancellations or delays. People offered up beds, couches and hot meals to French nationals in need.

Those having trouble making their way back to France were also encouraged to use the hashtag to ask for help.

Bicycles and tricycles for special needs children have adaptations like foot straps, torso supports and adjustable parts. They cost from $800 to $5,000, said Andrew McLindon, 53, founder of the foundation.

Over seven years, the McLindon Family Foundation has given away adaptive tricycles to children in nine states, helping them feel the independence and freedom of riding a bike.

McLindon’s love of bicycles led him to give away adaptive bikes. After success with the commercial construction company he started in 1989, he added auxiliary businesses that became Mainspring Companies, a group of construction, maintenance and real estate development enterprises.

Last May, 64 year-old Calgary resident Tom Crist was eating lunch in Palm Springs, California with a group of golf buddies. As they ate sandwiches in the club house and waited for their tee time, Tom’s cell phone rang. The call was coming from an unknown number in western Canada. It was probably a telemarketer, but Tom picked up the phone anyway just to be safe. It was not a telemarketer. Tom was greeted on the other end of the line by an official from the Western Canada Lottery Corporation. The official informed Tom that he had just won a $40 million Lotto Max jackpot. The largest jackpot anyone from Calgary had ever won. Instead of jumping up and down and screaming his lungs out with joy, Tom quietly finished his lunch and proceeded to play 18 holes. He never mentioned the news to any of his golf buddies.

Unlike most big lottery winners who spend days, or even months, trying to figure out how they’ll spend their newfound riches, Tom Crist needed only a moment to decide where his $40 million in winnings would go: all to charity.

His plan was to donate his winnings in honor of his wife Jan, who died in February of 2012 after a long battle with lung cancer.

His golf buddies weren’t the only ones who were kept in the dark. Tom didn’t even tell his own children until earlier this week when he shocked them with another announcement: Not only had he won $40 million in the lottery, he was going to give every cent away. “I knew where the money was going to go as soon as I got that call, I just didn’t want the media, the press, all that kind of stuff. So I just kept putting it off and putting it off, and putting it off.”

About The Picture

Finally, at the behest of the Western Canada Lottery Corp., he agreed to go public and have his photo taken. The fine print on the lottery subscription he bought required it.

The shy and retiring senior showed up for his win photo in dark glasses and a baseball cap. “They asked, ‘Is that your natural look?’ I said, yep. That’s all you’re getting. You’re not getting a smile, nothing.”

About His Kids

Tom informed his children that he was planning to put the money into family charity trust. Over the next few years, the family will meet and decide which charities need or deserve the money most. In honor of his late wife, cancer charities will hold a special place in Tom’s heart. At the top of his donation list are the Canadian Cancer Society and Calgary’s Tom Baker Cancer Centre. The Tom Baker Center is especially close to his heart because that’s where his wife was treated.

Giving It Away

Crist delivered his first big check — $1.2 million — on Tuesday to the Alberta Cancer Foundation, which collects donations for Calgary’s Tom Baker Cancer Centre, where Jan had been treated.

He strode into the ACF office, check in hand, without any prior warning, Phoebe Dey, a spokesperson for the foundation told NBC News.

“He surprised us,” Dey said. “He said that this is phase one of his gifts and that his intention with us was to make an annual gift. He stressed that this was just the beginning and that he intended to give away all $40 million.”

The donation, Dey said, “will go to enhance care for other patients. It will help an awful lot. He told us that he had been successful in life and already had enough money to take care of his family and that this is what his wife would have wanted. He was doing it in her name.”

Though Crist acknowledges that his actions may spark generosity in others, “I’m not doing it because it’s going to inspire somebody else, I’m doing it because that’s what my heart tells me to do.”

Thank you, Tom, for exemplifying the truth that enough really is enough.

Inspired To Act: #26Acts Of Kindness To Honor Those Lost In Newtown, Conn.

By Ann Curry, NBC News

Newtown’s heartbreak has a lot of us asking, “What can I do?” Thinking about this, I took to Twitter and asked people to imagine what would happen if all of us committed to 20 acts of kindness to honor each child lost in Newtown. I added, “I’m in. If you are, RT #20Acts.”

Tens of thousands of people on Twitter and Facebook not only seized the idea, they increased it to #26Acts, to include the heroic teachers, and are launching acts of kindness big and small all over America. The acts are spreading overseas, including one tweeted from Borneo.

Community members of Newtown, Conn., and strangers from around the world, are banding together to offer support during the aftermath of one of the deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. NBC’s Miguel Almaguer reports.

Some changed the hashtag to #26ActsOfKindness, some wanted to increase it to 27, and 28. All good. You are in charge of this wave now.

We are curating some of the acts shared so far, as a way to inspire you, and maybe help heal us all.

Fred Rogers once said that when he saw scary things in the news as a boy, his mother would say, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

Go to the NBC article HERE to read all of the wonderful ideas submitted by readers in the comments section.

102-year-old Headed Back To College

At age 102, car enthusiast Margaret Dunning is gearing up for her next great adventure: She’s heading back to college to finish her business degree.

Mere hours ago, Dunning — who had to drop out of the University of Michigan nearly 80 years ago during the Great Depression — had no idea that homework and tests were about to loom large in her life once again. But she’s lived long enough to know that happy surprises can come at the most unexpected times — and on Wednesday afternoon, the surprise she got was a doozy.

Click the photo above to read the rest of thisheart-warming story from NBC news.